New Self-Reliance A Novel of Endurance

V. Loewen G.

Description

Kristen and Mike's joy in reunion is immediately plunged into a new series of challenges that force them to suspend their disbelief in an ever-shifting world of trans-dimensional intrigue. From spirits animating the wrong bodies, agents from another universe, sudden membership in a family they've never before known, and dangerous technologies from both the future and the past, the heroes must also confront the ongoing mystery of how to replace the undead God or even if they should do so. Slowly assembling their team of intrepid young friends who themselves are not at first where they need to be, Mike stolidly pursues the dual nemesis of both their antagonist and his strange tools, while Kristen travels back to Tudor England to reboot the timeline in their favour. The narrative hurtles forward until they are all hanging on a precipice, their friends both new and old trapped in time, Mike transformed materially and his soulmate Kristen stunningly and unexpectedly transfigured. "The second instalment of Loewen's radical new adventure series is everything readers could have hoped for. The mystery deepens, the stakes attain new heights, and the characters develop insightful personal relationships that find them thrown together in both existential bliss and angst. This shocking cliff-hanger will only raise the ante, for readers as much as for the heroes themselves."

Sujets

• Adventure (Guyana)
• Adventure

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528964463
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The New Self-Reliance A Novel of Endurance
G. V. Loewen
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-05-31
The New Self-Reliance A Novel of Endurance About the Author About the Book Dedication Copyright Information Epigraph Chapter 1 A Farewell Chapter 2 Picking Lock Chapter 3 Taking Stock Chapter 4 Shooting Barrel Chapter 5 Eve ‘n’ Mary Chapter 6 Even Mary Chapter 7 Check Mated Chapter 8 The Cycle of Soul Chapter 9 Soul Mated Chapter 10 Destiny Interrupted
About the Author
Social philosopher G. V. Loewen is the author of over thirty-five books on ethics, religion, aesthetics and social theory. His ten-volume adventure saga ‘Kristen-Seraphim’ brings many of these wider themes into general readership.
About the Book
Kristen and Mike’s joy in reunion is immediately plunged into a new series of challenges that force them to suspend their disbelief in an ever-shifting world of trans-dimensional intrigue. From spirits animating the wrong bodies, agents from another universe, sudden membership in a family they’ve never before known, and dangerous technologies from both the future and the past, the heroes must also confront the ongoing mystery of how to replace the undead God or even if they should do so. Slowly assembling their team of intrepid young friends who themselves are not at first where they need to be, Mike stolidly pursues the dual nemesis of both their antagonist and his strange tools, while Kristen travels back to Tudor England to reboot the timeline in their favour. The narrative hurtles forward until they are all hanging on a precipice, their friends both new and old trapped in time, Mike transformed materially and his soulmate Kristen stunningly and unexpectedly transfigured.
“The second instalment of Loewen’s radical new adventure series is everything readers could have hoped for. The mystery deepens, the stakes attain new heights, and the characters develop insightful personal relationships that find them thrown together in both existential bliss and angst. This shocking cliff-hanger will only raise the ante, for readers as much as for the heroes themselves.”
Dedication
To those everyday heroes who have endured their
own life’s tests.
This is a work of fiction. Although real places may appear, any character’s resemblance to persons living or dead is purely a coincidence.
Copyright Information
Copyright © G. V. Loewen (2019)
The right of G. V. Loewen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528925846 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528964463 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Epigraph
The problem I thus pose is not what shall succeed mankind in the sequence of living beings, but what type of man shall be bred , shall be willed , for being higher in value, worthier in life, more certain of a future.
Nietzsche, 1888.
Chapter 1

A Farewell
Eighty-eight. Not bad. Two weeks of study and this was the score Kristen had pulled off for her GED. This represented the official end of her time as a student, at least, of the school-girl variety. Onto college in four months. She bid good riddance to it all. But others wished to bid her a fonder farewell and even wish her the best. This was news. Mrs. Harris, her former principal, had arranged a ‘going away’ party for her, to be held at the community center. Harris was obviously sensitive to the idea that Kristen might not want to revisit St. Athelstan’s, though the administrator and leader could not possibly know that the events that Kristen had lived through since dropping out, far out-compassed anything she had experienced in school. Even so, Kristen was relieved and even touched. Michael would, of course, be at her side. She would flaunt him, and be proud of it. Far prouder of being with him than even being herself, especially now.
For now, she lived in a world that had lost some of its love and light. Given this, she also had to confront the fact that neither she nor Mike knew much about the ultimate outcome of Kristen’s dark heroics. She was without family, without friends. Her soul mate was alive, however, and this fact alone outdid the damage done. Still, it was going to be tough, Kristen thought to herself. Now back in possession of her inner voice, she found that she needed it more than ever. Oh, you flatterer, you’ve got Mike Hunt, remember. You don’t need me like you used to. Besides, who’s the one stop shop for the new and improved Bond girl? I guess that would be me , Kristen answered herself. I’m both the girl and the agent in one. I wish I could just be the girl again, though. I killed almost everyone who loved me. I willed their deaths and I carried them out. Well, except my dad. That was Michael, er, Michael’s previous person, er, oh, whatever! But I would have done it myself if I hadn’t been taken so off-guard back there. With Mary, poor Mary. But she’s alive, and so is my mom! Except they don’t know me. Except that she’s Mary’s mom.
Kristen wondered if she could again befriend Mary even so. They’d be starting from scratch, zero. How could that possibly work out? The whole time since she and Mike had moved into the house they were sitting for a sabbaticant, had been occupied with two things: studying for the GED and brooding. Well, no, three things.
“Hey Ten, are you sure you’re being satisfied right now? I’m basically still a cripple, and I feel bad about it. After all, I did this to myself, and prematurely too.” Kristen was on the verge of weeping. No, Mike, I shot you. I did it. But you also did it. What the hell?
“My prince, my soul.” But this was all she could get out of her before she simply crawled across the couch and flung herself onto him. Now she really was crying. What was this, the fifth time in two weeks? She really needed to get a grip, if all she had fought for was going to have a future, however uncertain.
“Darling Kristen, the perfect Ten, my perfect one. Listen, maybe we can get it on again tonight, huh? I’m feeling stronger every day, you know?” Kristen flushed, not so much of embarrassment about having sex and wanting it so badly even though Mike was still in a lot of pain from his injuries – self-inflicted in one time-world and caused by her herself in another – but because in her experience she was precisely the cause of all of his pain, of both the bodily and spiritual varieties. She summoned up some courage; God knows where that had come from:
“Mike, my everlasting love, I am so selfish. But I swear to you, I only did what I did to you to free you. I didn’t know what else to do, I am so, so sorry….” Michael held her as tightly as he dared, kissing her forehead and now nibbling at her ear. He reached around and grabbed her behind and sensuously squeezed both cheeks with one hand. Kristen was immediately warm and distracted, but she fought down the obvious urge for a time. “Please Michael, I don’t deserve you, I…” Then she gasped and winced. Michael had smacked her bottom quite firmly. Just once, to get her attention, it seemed. Hmmph! Now how dare he, oh, I get it…
“Miss Ten. I never ever want to hear that from you again. It’s I who don’t deserve you, Princess Pluck. You saved my life. You did the only thing you could and carried it off, even though it meant engaging another kind of worldview which looks like lunacy from any rational perspective. I owe you my life, girl. I’m going to pay that debt back to you some day, at some time.” Kristen shook her head.
“No. You already paid it back. Back in 1517, in the forest with my dad.” Mike pondered on that one.
“You really think that was me, then, or my soul, or whatever?”
“Yes. More and more so over the past two weeks or so, since we reunited. I feel him inside you. Now, of course, I want you more, and I like you more. We’re from the same time and place, which is now, even though this isn’t the same now, exactly, as when we met, oh shit…” Kristen was getting into the same old muddle that she and Mike had been puzzling over since they had found each other again. Sorting logistical things out helped them settle down and settle in, though lovemaking had had to get even more creative given Mike’s injuries. But logistical and material variables hadn’t shown them one iota of the larger problem, the paradoxes of temporal and dimensional shifting, and the utter incongruity of their different experiences of it. Even time seemed to have moved at differing paces in the two worlds they had experienced. Mike had been in the hospital for three weeks. Kristen had been on her mission for only two. And yet both timelines had started more or less at the same moment.
“Listen, Michael, manly and true, I was in the vanishing house and property for a period of time. That’s when my time-line could have been sped up. It felt like only a few hours at most to me. Then the whole forest thing. That seemed like three days at most. Eleven – let’s call them congruent, days – with the other modeling crowd, which means I had ten days to make up in about three or so. Maybe in the other dimension time moves about three times as fast as it does in this one?” A brief pause, “Hey, keep going with that, please baby.” Mike had stopped his massaging of her rear view when he had begun to ponder the implications of temporal speeds and differing experiences of events. He smiled at her and winked, resuming his rubbing. Kristen